Perspective in Truth
by Amy494walker
Summary: 'Missing scene' from Proof 7x02. Spoilers may lie within. Emily visits Reid and tried to fix what is broken. Friendship Fic. Pre-Ship if you choose to see it that way.


Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor their characters.

Summary: 'Missing scene' from Proof 7x02. Spoilers may lie within. Emily visits Reid and tried to fix what is broken. Friendship Fic. Pre-Ship if you choose to see it that way.

A/N: To say I was a little unsatisfied with the ending of Proof would be an understatement. I don't understand how everything could be resolved by Emily telling Reid about her ulcer and the offering him pasta could fix everything. This is sounding really negative. I truly loved the episode I was just greatly underwhelmed by the resolve. So I made one myself! :D

The flight home hadn't been too long but it had felt like an eternity. After his little talk with Emily she had gone to one of the seats at the front with the others and left him to ponder what she had said. He imagined that she did have a difficult time being on her own, without her team. She had probably been very lonely, but what she had said got to him. He hadn't mourned the LOSS of a friend he had mourned the DEATH of a friend. He had helped carry her coffin. He had laid a rose on her grave every Saturday morning and had spent the rest of those Saturdays crying on JJ's shoulder. Emily had to have felt it possible that she would see them again or at least be able to imagine they where somewhere living good lives whereas Reid hadn't had that. He had felt so empty inside at the thought that he couldn't even protect his best friend when she needed him most and the guilt over not identifying the resignation rather than sadness in her voice when he over heard her saying that Lauren Reynolds was dead had been so strong that late at night, alone in his apartment, he had felt that the only way he could survive his grief was to bury it with the same substance that had worked so poorly and yet so, so well in the past. But the worst part of it all was her saying that she hadn't had any choice. Maybe when they where at the hospital after the stabbing they truly felt they didn't but that wasn't where this story began. She had known that Doyle was hunting her for weeks before that and she hadn't told them. She hadn't trusted them. Hadn't trusted him. She was the first person he trusted with his fear, with the truth about the headaches he had been experiencing and she had been there for him. It had truly comforted him to know that he wasn't alone, that he could tell someone about the migraines and their first instinct wouldn't be Schizophrenia and now he knew that even then she had been hiding her own fears from him. Probably thought he was to weak or naive to help her. He felt like a fool. The longer the flight went on, the angrier he got.

Where the hell did she get off comparing what he, and the rest of the team save Hotch and JJ of course, had gone through with her having to spend a few month in Paris alone. He had spent years of his life alone and didn't feel the need to make it anybody else's problem. As the plane landed he had mumbled something about finishing his paper work the next day and took a cab home, he was in no mood to be sitting in an office with JJ and Emily staring at him like he had kicked their respective puppy's.

As Reid walked in he shut the door behind him and leaned heavily against it taking in the almost deafening silence of his apartment. He hated how he had longed for this solitude all afternoon and yet here he was, wallowing in self pity at the emptiness of his home. Maybe he should get a pet, he had to be able to find one species of animal out there that didn't automatically hate him. He must have stayed pressed against the door for longer than he had realized because he was drawn from this thoughts by a light knocking on the door that a glance out of the peephole revealed to Emily. Groaning quietly Reid just stood behind the door making no move to open it hoping she would think he had gone elsewhere and leave.

"Reid, come on I know you're in there I followed you here"

Well, so much for that. Taking a deep breath he forced what he hoped was an completely uninterested and indifferent expression on his face and swung the door open to reveal a rather fidgety Emily.

"What do you want and why did you follow me home?" He asked before she had a chance to greet him. She sighed at his tone, obviously realizing that this conversation wasn't going to be made easy for her. 'Good, she should be annoyed' he thought admittedly rather petulant.

Emily took a deep breath and looked him in the eye with a warm expression that in his current mood just made him want to slam the door shut and crawl into bed. "I noticed that you still seemed a little tense after the flight and I wanted to make sure .. we're good right?"

Reid was incredulous. He actually scoffed, how the hell could she think a 60 second chat on a plane predominantly based around freaking pasta could undo all that pain?

"No. No, Emily. We are not good, I can tell that you probably expected your little pep talk to smooth things over but guess what? Everything you said? It was all crap!" Emily's eyes widened at both the words and the rather biting tone Reid was using. For a moment it looked like she was going to respond to what he said but instead looked down for a few seconds before meeting his gaze again.

"Reid, can we maybe talk about this inside?" He considered just angrily telling her to go away, pretending to forgive her just to get her to leave him alone or even just standing cross armed in the doorway denying her entrance and glaring daggers at her until she got bored and left. Unfortunately the first two options would only delay this conversation and the third would make him a 5yr old. So he begrudgingly allowed her in.

She walked slowly through the short hallway that led to the living room and went over to the couch. "Mind if I sit?"

Not feeling all that communicative he simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that really said "I couldn't give a crap what you do" more than it did "Yes"

Em seemed to be bracing her self to speak and Reid stayed quiet allowing her start the conversation.

"What you said" she finally said as she looked up at him leaning against the wall with his arms crossed on the other side of the room from her "About what I said on the plane being ,,, 'crap'"

"Yeah" he responded with an edge actually interested in hearing her arguments about why he was wrong and how he should listen to her.

"Well, you where completely right" Reid tried really hard not to allow his surprise at her words show, he had being expecting her to put up an argument about how she was right and he was wrong for still being angry with them.

"I just kept telling myself that when I talked to you I would know what to say to make it all better but I just ... couldn't think of the right words and the more I thought about what I did say the more ... glib I seemed. I just, Reid I didn't mean to just brush off your feelings like that and I'm sorry. I did have a really hard time being away from all you guy's but I just kept thinking about how I would feel if it had been me back here in Virginia, trying to cope with losing you. And, I'd take the first option every time." She said looking at him with eyes begging him to understand.

He actually felt a tinge of relief that she didn't truly think so little of his grief, that she had just been searching for a solution to his pain. However she had missed the whole point. He wasn't an idiot. Yes he was upset with JJ for her part in the lie about Em's death. Hotch too. He couldn't help that. But his anger towards JJ stemmed from the fact that she had been there for him throughout his grief when she had known Emily was alive and he couldn't ignore the illogical idea that she had been laughing at him behind his back. Did he understand. intellectually, why JJ had done what she did? Yes, of course. Did that stop him feeling a dagger of betrayal and humiliation every time he was around her? No.

But Emily. She had lied before all of this. He couldn't understand why everyone just seemed to have forgotten that she had lied to them, ran off and almost gotten herself killed. Why the hell couldn't he be angry about that?

"You're missing the point. You knew that Doyle was after you and you didn't tell us, instead you just ran off on your own completely forgetting that you had a team, friends, family who would have helped you fight. You couldn't find the right words Emily because there are none. You proved that in your time of need, you don't trust me to help you. To be there for you." Emily's brow knitted into a frown at that but he couldn't focus on that right now. He could feel all that tension bubbling to the surface and the words spilled from his mouth.

"I mean, god. I think about all the times I poured my heart out to you like an idiot because I thought we where friends. When Gideon left, after we where held hostage by Cyrus. My headaches. I told you my fears and doubts in all those situations and I took comfort in you and all this time you where just laughing at the pathetic little cry baby."

Emily stood and tried to protest, but he raised a hand to cut her off. He was just getting started.

"When you found out Doyle was after you, you didn't tell me, you didn't tell any of us. You didn't care that we would want to help. Why wouldn't you tell us? Didn't you know what it would do to us to lose you like that. Without being able to help or do something? ANYTHING!" Reid rarely raised his voice but he just felt overwhelmed. Months of pain and torment were just pouring out of him and mixing with the hurt and betrayal of finding out that one of the seven people he trusted most on earth had led to him suffering through one of the worst losses he had ever felt becuase he hadn't been good enough to earn her trust.

Taking a few steps towards him, Emily interjected now, eager to have her say "I was trying to protect you."

"Bull!" Reid snapped "You left the office that day because you knew we were getting surveillance pictures showing you at Doyle's the day of the arrest, you HAD to have known that we would come looking for you. Either way we where smack bang in the middle of the whole thing. Exactly where did the protection part come in mmm?"

She just stared at him, not moving. Nodding his head, Reid took a step forward "You wanted a head start, to deal with it on your own because you didn't trust us to be able to help you. You didn't trust us with your life like we trusted you with ours. Which is fine! You know. That's your choice. But you can't just come back here and act like all that never happened. Like we can just be friends again."

Emily looked hurt. With a sad expression in her eyes she took a deep breath before speaking. "I do trust you with my life, all of you, a million times over. But it wasn't just me I was protecting, I had to make sure that Declan was safe too."

"I'd trust you with my Mom." His voice was now small and devoid of all anger. He was past that now, he simply couldn't find the energy anymore. He just felt so drained and ... weak. "I know that Hotch would trust you with Jack. It's the fact that that didn't matter to you that makes this ... " gesturing to the small space between them "... impossible"

Em moved forward and reached for his hand but he moved it away. "Reid, please. I ..." He just closed his eyes, looked down and shook his head "I'd like you to go now" God he could feel the tears brimming in his eyes and hear the crack in his voice. He just desperately wanted to be alone right now.

But Emily had heard the crack in his voice too and her expression became one of determination. "I am not leaving here Reid. Not until you listen to me." Looking up Reid noticed that there where tears glistening in her eyes too. So, he listened.

"I'm going to tell you the truth because it is the very LEAST I owe you. I didn't leave that day to get a head start. I left for the same reason I didn't tell you about Doyle from the beginning. Because I couldn't bear to watch the look on your faces when you found out the truth about me, who I really was, what I had done. How close I had allowed myself to get to Doyle. The fact that all those people who died at his hands died because I had betrayed him, taken his son away from him." Reid tried to argue with that but she cut him off "I did what I had to do, I know that, but that doesn't make the guilt go away and you know that. I am so sorry Reid" She whispered as the tears began to fall "That I made you doubt my trust in you or our friendship, and that it lead to you having to grieve my death, I can't ever change that now but know this. You thinking I didn't... don't trust you breaks my heart Spencer because you are the one person in the whole word I trust most of all." And with that Reid too let his tears fall.

"It's just that, when it came time to tell you all about me, how I had lied to you all along about why I was in DC. About Doyle and Declan the truth is I didn't trust you. I didn't trust you not to judge me for the things I had done. I didn't trust you not to hate me for them the way I do myself. I didn't trust you to still love ..." As her words died on her lips they both just stood there silently crying and completely drained until Reid closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around a trembling Emily "I'll always love you Emily. You're my family." The gesture and the words turned her silent tears into sobs as she circled Reid's torso with her arms and smothered her face in his chest.

They stayed like that for a little while, just being close to one another. Reid couldn't understand how such a short time ago he had basically said he could never see Emily as a true friend again but now with her in his arms, he found that he could forgive her. He knew that she had meant every word she had said to him. About why she lied. About her shame. After all, he had been there himself. He remembered feeling like he would never be able to tell his team about the dalaudid. How could he. He had lied and manipulated in order to keep his secret because he couldn't bear the looks on their faces when they learned the truth about him. 'That's exactly what Emily said.' He thought. Suddenly he felt like a jerk. He knew that he still had reason to be upset but how could he just forsake her like that. Emily had stayed a true and loyal friend to him back then even when he had treated her like dirt. Tightening his grip around Emily he thought, not for the first time in his life, just how much she meant to him. How incredibly dear she was to him. This would be a lot easier than he had thought it would be.

"Emily. I'm sorry."

She pulled away from him and searched his face with a confused look on her face "What the hell do you have to be sorry about?"

Reid let his hands fall from her shoulders and lowered them to hers, threading their fingers.

"Here I am ranting about you not trusting me. I didn't trust you. I didn't have faith in you or our friendship"

"Well, I kinda shook your confidence a little on that front." Em smiled up at him and gave his hand a little squeeze "Rei ... Spence, please don't be sorry. For anything. Okay?"

He just smiled and nodded. He looked down at Emily and he was suddenly desperate for her not to leave , regardless of how bad he had wanted her gone a while ago, he just wanted to be close to her.

"Do you wanna stay ... for a while. Maybe watch a movie or something" He asked laughing nervously.

"I would really, really like that" She responded with a bright smile. As they sat on the couch and surfed the channels Emily patted Reid's knee "So what about tomorrow night? The 'Pasta Party'?" She said complete with air quotes that made Reid smile " Are you gonna come, I think it could be a lot of fun."

"I don't know, I'm supposed to call my Mom tomorrow night, I call her every other night and it depends how long she stays on the line. Sometimes it's just for a few minutes other times she can ramble on for hours." The last part said with such a wide smile he was sure there was no doubt just how much he cherished those times. "I'll see if I can make it"

"Good, I hope you do. And give you Mom our best."

"Will do."

Sitting on the couch in Reid's apartment, watching some cheesy horror movie with Emily listening intently to Reid's lectures on all the many things they where getting wrong about anything and everything, both felt a renewed sense of perspective. Trust would need to be rebuilt, bridges mended, but for the first time since that night at the hospital, Reid finally knew that one day he would have his best friend back.


End file.
